YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 2, the 215th day of 2016. There are 151 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: Members of the Continental Congress begin attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.

1873: Inventor Andrew S. Hallidie successfully tests a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco.

1923: The 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, dies in San Francisco; Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes president.

1939: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act, which prohibited civil-service employees from taking an active part in political campaigns.

1943: During World War II, U.S. Navy boat PT-109, commanded by Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy, sinks after being rammed in the middle of the night by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri off the Solomon Islands. Two crew members are killed.

1974: Former White House counsel John W. Dean III is sentenced to one to four years in prison for obstruction of justice in the Watergate cover-up. (Dean ended up serving four months.)

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. (The Iraqis later would be driven out in Operation Desert Storm.)

2011: The Senate passes, and President Barack Obama signs, legislation to avoid an unprecedented national default.

2015: The International Olympic Committee says it will order testing for disease-causing viruses in the sewage-polluted waters where athletes will compete in the 2016 Rio Games.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Former Ohio Govs. Richard Celeste and James Rhodes join Gov. George Voinovich for the opening of the Ohio State Fair in Columbus.

The Fuji Photo Film blimp is flying over the Youngstown area providing a bird’s-eye view of the Phar-Mor Pro-Am Tournament at Squaw Creek Country Club.

Martha Clark, 77, of Cannonsburg, Pa., visits 2-week old Nicholas Timko, son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Timko of Berlin Center, her 55th great- grandchild, and her 100th grandchild or great-grandchild.

1976: Warren police are investigating the shooting death of Vernon Procopio, 56, owner of the Triangle Inn, whose body was found in the basement of the tavern on Youngstown Road SE.

Scuba divers join the search for Loretta Hobbs, 33, of Culver City, Calif., daughter of Youngstown Municipal Judge Lloyd R. Haynes, who disappeared when a 25-foot cabin cruiser capsized in heavy seas off Playa Del Rey, Calif.

Some 110 members of the United Rubber and Plastics Workers Union, Local 956, are picketing the Plakie Toys Inc. plant at 4105 Simon Road in a strike over wages and fringe benefits.

1966: General Fireproofing Co. President John A. Saunders announces that the company will spend $12.2 million on a three-year expansion program at its Youngstown plant.

A drive to raise $30,000 to remodel and equip two homes for neglected boys and girls opens at a dinner attended by 150 community leaders. It is sponsored by Steel Valley Homes for Youths Inc. at the Mural building.

George Bellino, Youngstown golf pro, fires an even-par 71 to qualify for the $100,000 Cleveland Open at Lakewood County Club.

1941: Craig Wood, National Open golf champion, smashes the course record at Mahoning Country Club as he breezes around the first 18 holes in his match with Vic Ghezzi, PGA titleholder, in 63 strokes.

A 1,000-seat theater costing $125,000 will be built on East Midlothian Boulevard, between Market and Hillman streets, by Paul and M. Joseph Raful, Youngstown district theater operators. It will be named the Newport Theater.

Richard Rotzel will join the faculty of the Youngstown College Business and Secretarial School as a typing teacher. He succeeds Miss Nancy Cummins.